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Hi and Lois, 3/26/23

Hi, you are … 45 years old, tops? You are probably never going to become a famous guitar player but you absolutely can still write a novel and, since the main barrier stopping most people from travelling around the world is money, as a comfortably middle-class adult you are probably closer to achieving that dream than you’ve ever been in your life. Are you … are you dying, Hi? Are you dying soon? Is this your way of softening the blow when you tell Lois that she’s about to be widowed?

Beetle Bailey, 3/26/23

I’m sorry, I didn’t speak up loudly enough years back when Beetle Bailey eased into its ongoing “Beetle and Miss Buxley are dating, by the way,” thing, and I strongly feel like I have to nip this in the bud. The whole point of the dynamic between Sargents Snorkel and Lugg is that she’s into him and it’s not reciprocated. I don’t care what headcanon you have about it — that he’s gay and secretly in love with Beetle, or that he’s asexual, or that he’s straight and interested in a relationship in general but simply doesn’t have romantic feelings for her — but doing a whole strip where Sarge really puts forth a lot of effort to be appealing on a date with her is a direct affront to every longtime Beetle Bailey reader.

Family Circus, 3/26/23

Jeffy is definitely puking his guts out all over the bed, right? That’s the joke here? That Billy got distracted and now Jeffy is plastering their room with barf?

Six Chix, 3/26/23

It’s springtime, everyone! Thought about beautifying your home by tearing a family apart lately?

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/12/23

Barney Google more or less vanished from his namesake strip in the 1930s as it pivoted to cruel jokes about hillbillies full time, but he started making regular appearances again in the early 2010s. I’ve always been a bit curious about why that decision was made — was it just to mix things up in a strip that had gone stale? Was it to ensure that the valuable Barney and Spark Plug IP didn’t fall into the public domain? But today we learn the awful truth: Barney has returned to Hootin’ Holler because this impoverished, isolated community is at risk of catastrophe due to its limited gene pool, and the women of the town are eager for Barney’s flatlander seed.

Blondie, 3/12/23

This is, frankly, a pretty weak showing in the cluttered genre of Blondie strips that latch onto whatever current event has popped up on the calendar; I’m particularly unimpressed that they didn’t even try to fit into actual Oscar categories, instead making up a bunch of vaguely Oscar-esque ones. Still, my biggest concern arises from the very first panel, in which we learn that Dagwood doesn’t know the difference between Facebook and LinkedIn.

Six Chix, 3/12/23

Ha ha, remember Pizza Rat, the beloved internet sensation from 2015? Well, rats typically live about two years, and even the best treated pet rats five or six, so Pizza Rat is definitely dead now. Don’t let Six Chix fool you into believing that he’s lived a long and happy life in the New York Subway somewhere, he’s 100% dead. RIP Pizza Rat, c. 2014-c. 2016, you will be missed.

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Crock, 3/4/23

Hmm, looks like Maggot has bailed on his marital counseling session and now it’s just Grossie pouring her heart out to some dude in a cave. Anyway, do you think when you’re writing a strip like today’s, you pause a moment and think “Wow, I really named a guy ‘Maggot,’ which is also a thing that in some cultures people actually eat, sometimes dipped in chocolate?” Or are you just very, very invested at this point in the idea that “Maggot” is literally a name that a person could have?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/4/23

Speaking of which, to what extent do the writers of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith think of themselves as writing an ongoing satire of poor people living in Appalachia and/or the Ozarks? Or have they mostly forgotten it and are just working with long-memorized character designs and orthographic conventions? Because in the former case today’s strip has the vibe of “Ha ha, I’m really sticking it to these hillbilly moochers” whereas in the latter case it seems like the much gentler and frankly accurate “Ha ha, people want government services but don’t want to pay the taxes that fund them, amiright people????”

Six Chix, 3/4/23

“I also carry them around with me, which forced me to eventually stop reading altogether. Books are very heavy!”